


Survival

by melimarron



Series: Peeta Mellark Character Study Compilation [2]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, POV Peeta Mellark, hooray for trauma!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26415019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melimarron/pseuds/melimarron
Summary: Peeta's survived the Hunger Games, but now that he's home, nothing is the same.(A continuation of my earlier Peeta character study)
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Series: Peeta Mellark Character Study Compilation [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920007
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Survival

Fake.

It was fake, fake, all of it fake.

Katniss' love for him was a lie.

Peeta should’ve known.

What had he been thinking?  _ She came here with me? _ How could he have been so stupid as to just  _ tell _ the Capitol all about the  _ one thing _ he had hidden all his life?

And he’d told Katniss all about the bread, too. His mother would-

Peeta felt nauseous.

He stared out the window.  _ Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. You’re a Hunger Games victor. You  _ can’t _ cry. _ Katniss didn’t love him and never had. He could see the logic in her decision, sort of. He’d made the confession to try to get sponsors, after all. 

But oh, God, it hurt so much.

The train rolled to a stop.

He opens his mouth. The words come out in a monotone. “One more time? For the cameras?”

Katniss takes his hand, and Peeta turns to the train doors, a smile crossing his face like his world hasn’t been shattered. For the cameras.

The cameras. The goddamned cameras that would be filming his reunion with his parents and brothers, and Katniss’ reunion with her mother and Prim, the girl the entire nation had fallen in love with through the stories she’d told in the cave, with words that were  only meant for  Peeta’s ears-

No. 

They had been crafted, hadn’t they? Carefully planned out. So that she could survive.  _ Remember that, Peeta. Everything she did was to survive _ . 

He hadn’t quite grasped that _she_ hadn’t accepted that she was going to die, the way he had as he’d walked onto the stage. How long ago had that been, now? Two weeks? Three? It felt like years.

He swallowed. His throat was dry. He remembered the soup that he and Katniss had gotten for the Games. It had been the best thing he’d ever tasted. Even though he’d been upset when it had come, because it was interrupting Katniss’ story.

Peeta waved for the cameras.

Katniss’ story. In the cave. That was the moment she had told Caesar she had fallen in love with him.

Peeta decided, right then and there, that he didn’t really like those memories at all anymore. Before, they had almost been a source of comfort- yes, they were trapped in these horrible Games, and he was definitely going to die because he was a baker and a failed Career and even if he did make it to the final two, there was no way he could kill Katniss. But he’d had Katniss with him. As long as she was here and safe, he was okay.

Knowing that she hadn’t felt the same way- that their relationship had been built on a need to survive rather than love- destroyed those memories.

Katniss let go of his hand as soon as the cameras stopped rolling, and Peeta’s hand felt cold without it. The two of them faced each other, awkward suddenly in a way they hadn’t been since before the cave.

Disgust washed over Peeta suddenly. She’d just been leading him on.

“See you,” Katniss said, brusque.

Peeta swallowed again. He really needed to drink something. “Yeah,” he managed, and turned away. He could see his mother waiting for him, beaming. Strange: he was now her most successful child, at sixteen.

He tried to forget that she would never have smiled at him like that if he hadn’t gone to the Games.

They didn't hug, when he reached her. But they smiled at each other, even if his mother’s eyes did flick down to his false leg once.

“I’m so proud of you,” his mother said. “I never doubted you.”

Peeta knew that only one of those things was true. “Thanks,” he said anyway.

“Your father’s making dinner,” his mother said. “Steak!”

Steak. A luxury that Peeta had never tasted until he’d been reaped.

Peeta smiled again at his mother. It felt fake, too much like the ones he’d been giving the Capitol cameras. But he was well-practiced at fake smiles now, wasn’t he? All part of the game. And if you played the game right, you’d survive.

Katniss had played the game right. Peeta had stumbled along until she’d taken pity on him and dragged him along to her victory.

“Sounds good,” he said, and he was surprised to realize that he almost sounded like he meant it. “I can’t wait.”

His mother’s smile broadened. “Your father and brothers will be so happy to see you.”

Peeta nods. “I’m so glad to be home.”

The cameramen dismantle their tripods, slap Peeta on the back, and walk away, back to the train.

For the first time in weeks, Peeta is alone, without the ever-present glare of cameras, without the entirety of Panem looking on.

Without Katniss.

It’s almost lonely.

* * *

“What was it like with the Careers?” one of his brothers asked, idly cutting up his meat like he’d been eating this kind of high-quality steak his entire life.

Peeta frowned and set down his own fork and knife. It wasn’t like he’d been eating much anyway.  _ Be calm. _ “You didn’t see the footage?”

“They were focusing on  _ Katniss, _ ” his brother said. There was a teasing lilt to his voice. “Like, how did that happen, you getting in with them?”

Peeta’s mouth tightened. He hadn’t liked being with the Careers, but they were his best bet for survival. He’d killed for the first time with them. The District Eight girl. She was thirteen, at best.

Nobody had volunteered for her, either.

He shrugged.

“I can’t  _ believe _ you survived because of  _ cake decorating _ and  _ berries _ ,” his brother said.

“And  _ looooove, _ ” his other brother said.

Peeta tensed. “Well, I didn’t see either of you jumping up to volunteer on Reaping Day,” he snapped out. He regretted it almost immediately. He’d survived, after all, what did he have to complain about? To them, he’d  _ survived _ the Hunger Games and gotten the girl he’d pined after for eleven years. By all rights, he had it  _ made. _

He’d just had to go through the  _ Hunger Games _ first.

“I’m too old!” his oldest brother said quickly.

His other brother was noticeably silent.

_ You could ha ve _ _volunteered,_ Peeta thought, fighting to keep his anger off his face. _You could have saved me._

The table was quiet for too long. Peeta's anger surged, and he  stood. “I’m going upstairs,” he announced, and hurried away. He didn’t run. His prosthetic didn't allow it.

He walked away, knowing that his brother flinched with every hollow _thump_ from his prosthetic.

He went up to his room and sat at his desk. He pulled out a piece of paper and started sketching out ideas to paint. He’d have to showcase his work to the Capitol when the Victory Tour started. He’d have to have some good paintings by then.

The first face he sketched out was creased in surprise and fear. He knew her face, almost intimately. The District Eight girl. The thirteen year old. The one he’d killed.

Peeta felt another surge of nausea. He wished that he hadn’t eaten at dinner.

He crumpled up the girl’s face and tossed it away. He hadn’t even known her name.

He sketched out Katniss’ face, then, almost accidentally. He’d stared at her in the cave a lot- too much, maybe- watching how the light danced on her face and trying to decipher her minute changes in expression. He’d stared at her in the final few hours of the Game, when she had been desperate and he had been bleeding out. He’d stared at her after their victory, trying to ignore the gaping emptiness of his leg.

This sketch was of her looking at him, and even though he hadn’t drawn her body, he knew that if he had, she would be holding the berries.

He scrunched up the paper and tossed it away. Not Katniss. Katniss had  _ lied _ . Katniss had acted like he was just a dumb idiot who could be strung along just as easily as the Capitol citizens. And the worst part was that, apparently, he  _ was _ just a dumb idiot who could be strung along just as easily as the Capitol citizens.

He’d forgotten, so many times, about the spotlight that was on the two of them. He’d let himself believe that she had no ulterior motives, that maybe her feelings were real and not just an easy way for her to drum up Capitol support and Capitol sponsors.

He wasn’t used to being in the spotlight, and maybe Katniss wasn’t either, but one of them had taken to it like a duck to water, manipulating people left and right to achieve their goals, and it definitely wasn’t him.

Peeta stood up, and not bothering to take off his clothes, he collapsed onto his bed. Maybe when he woke up, he would realize that it was Reaping Day, and the past few weeks had been a long, torturous dream, switching between sweet dream to nightmare in seconds. Maybe, when he woke up, it would be Reaping Day and someone would love him enough to volunteer for him.

Peeta closed his eyes. His bed was too soft. Ironic, for someone who’d slept soundly in Capitol beds after the Games were over. But he’d still had Katniss’ love, then.

He wished that he had swallowed the berries.

He wished that he could still hope for a future with Katniss.

He wished that he could just be a normal sixteen year old boy again.

In the darkness, he can hear the District Eight girl screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think?


End file.
